http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/19546264.html?location_refer=Opinion

On this, the 40th anniversary of Kennedy's murder, his campaign holds instructive lessons for Obama's.

Like Obama, Kennedy ran against an unpopular war and against the political establishment in his own party, closely tied in 1968 to the sitting president, Lyndon Johnson. But at a time of deepening social and political divisions at home, he focused chiefly on the domestic challenges and sought a "new politics" to address them. Seared by the death of his brother and inspired by the example of the civil-rights movement, Kennedy ran on a platform promoting racial and economic justice, ending the Vietnam War, and decentralizing power that touched older American themes concerning the shared work of citizenship. His campaign especially looked to engage young people, whom he saw as the future of a revitalized America, recalling its ideals of equality and partnership.

Obama's commencement speech at Wesleyan was particularly indicative of endorsing this public service.  That speech (the transcript of which can be found here: http://www.wfsb.com/news/16389467/detail.html ), spoken on behalf of Bobby's little brother Ted on the event of his illness, spoke to taking back our country through the forge of self-sacrifice and commitment.

But, as we all know, Bobby Kennedy's work was cut short.

After Kennedy's tragic death, others carried on this legacy. One was Barbara Mikulski, the senator from Maryland who got her start as a community organizer in Baltimore and came to recognize that "the ethnic American feels unappreciated for the contribution he makes to society."

"What is needed," she said in 1969, "is an alliance of white and black, white collar, blue collar and no collar based on mutual need, interdependence and respect, an alliance to develop the strategy for new kinds of community organization and participation."

What is the modern Democratic party but an "alliance of white and black, white collar, blue collar, and no collar?"  Barack Obama is soon unleashing trained throngs of new community organizers soon in the Organizing Fellowship project (official link: http://my.barackobama.com/page/s/fellowsapp ).  Though these new organizers' first job is to elect progressive candidates to public office, the scope of their work has yet to be determined, and I believe will yield great fruits in the years to come.

The late priest and activist contemporary of Mikulski, Monsignor Geno Baroni, said:

The organizer has to believe that ordinary people can build bridges across racial and ethnic lines... [and] has to get ordinary people in touch with their roots, their heritage, their best. The organizer has to give ordinary people hope.

Sound familiar?

Barack Obama's developing plans for creating partnerships between government and citizens resonate powerfully with these experiences and histories. They build on and elaborate the foundations of New Deal reforms, the "maximum feasible participation" elements of Great Society programs, the self-help initiatives pioneered by Baroni as assistant secretary of housing and urban development in the Carter administration, and the work of the Environmental Protection Agency with local communities during the Clinton years. They also seek to update these practices for a world in which new technologies and civic methods allow innovative forms of partnership.

There has been some speculation that Barack Obama will open the government up to new technologies that don't involve blowing people up, that there's the chance of an Office of Technology with its own cabinet position, to facilitate modernization and ease the notoriously antiquated government along the path of future development.  Under the current administration, so swelled by contractors, the limited understanding of information technology, for example, led to our prospective Presidents-in-the-making getting their passport information exposed.  This is just one niggling example of many where we stand to improve ourselves and our process.

The shared work of citizenship is a powerful expression of Barack Obama's call for one America. The complex history of interracial politics consistently demonstrates that the key to any substantial and lasting coalition is the opportunity for people to work together, to learn more about each other, to meet one another in circumstances that are not burdened by social hierarchies. Obama's ideas about democracy and governance, and about partnerships and participation, take account of this history and enable his campaign to enliven Bobby Kennedy's vision of a better world. And, as we commemorate Kennedy's tragic death, Obama, like Kennedy a generation ago, may ask, "why not?"

So, this message goes out to Bobby, on the roads that he must now walk, to let him know, that we have not forgotten, that his work continues.

Peace, all.